BBC News Executives ‘Step Aside’ in Pedophilia Scandal

Two BBC news executives resigned on Monday pending the results of an internal investigation into the alleged cover-up of two pedophilia scandals.

Days after the network's director-general George Entwistle quit, BBC news director Helen Boaden and her deputy Steve Mitchell were asked to "step aside" but said they "expect to then return to their positions" after an internal inquiry.

The executive shake-up comes amid a ballooning scandal over accusations that the BBC canned an investigation by its "Newsnight" current affairs show into late children's TV star Jimmy Savile. Savile allegedly coerced scores of teenage girls into sex multiple times, including at the BBC's studios.

Another "Newsnight" program wrongly implicated a former Conservative Party leader Lord McAlpine in accusations of sexual abuse at a children’s home in North Wales in the 1970s and 1980s.

The BBC said neither Boaden nor Mitchell "had anything at all to do with the failed 'Newnight' investigation into Lord McAlpine."

"However, they were in the chain of command at the time that 'Newsnight' shelved an earlier investigation into abuse claims against former BBC presenter Jimmy Savile," the BBC reported on its website. "They had removed themselves from making decisions on some areas of BBC News output while a separate inquiry, by former head of Sky News Nick Pollard, was held into that decision."